The Rox Report

8th Grade VIP Challenge Begins TODAY!

We’re excited to kick off our first 8th Grade VIP Challenge of the year! Beginning today, our 8th graders are working toward earning an invitation to our first VIP Event on Friday, September 4!

To earn VIP status, students must:

Be on time: no tardies
Be here: no absences
Complete ALL MAP testing: ELA, Math, and Science
Give their best effort: alert and no rapid guessing!

We know our 8th graders can rise to the challenge, and we’re excited to celebrate students who show up, stay focused, and give their best effort!

And families, be on the lookout! Our 8th graders may also be bringing home a ROX Shout-Out recognizing the positive choices, effort, leadership, and great things we see them doing at school.

We are off to a great start in 8th grade!

Physical Education: In physical education class, students will work on building stamina through proper training and sprints. Sprints will increase weekly to help students succeed in the pacer test. Team work will be stressed as students compete in dodgeball and kickball.

Spanish: Students in all grades are launching their first digital project this week! They are creating "Get To Know Me" Digital Presentations to not only practice their typing and design skills, but they will also share their unique personalities, cultures, and interests. Ask your student to show their work to you through Google Classroom!

MSSP: The Middle School Scholars Program (MSSP - Gifted) is excited to announce that programming will begin on Monday, August 31st. We are also excited to announce that this year, we will have 100+ students participating in the program. Ms. Nelson and Mr. Powaski are looking forward to seeing those students who participated in the program last year and welcoming in our students who are new to us this year.

STEM, PLTW, and Robotics: After kicking off the week with some fun "brainiac" and robotic temporary tattoos on Monday, students will be stepping out of their comfort zones to stretch their design thinking skills through creative games like "Mockups" and interactive group activities.

Chinese: 8th grade: Pre-assessment; Review greetings; self introduction

6th & 7th grade: Pre-assessment; Chinese name card making; introduce the Pinyin system; basic greetings.

Art: Welcoming students, building classroom routines, team building, relationship building through common experience. Model class expectations, kindness.

Drawing exercises, practice appropriate use of Chromebook in Art class, demonstration and beginning of first Art project of the year.

Fun Friday, student choice of materials.

I'm looking forward to working with your students!

AVID: 7th Grade AVID is learning more about what skills, competencies and traits are necessary within the CCR or college, career readiness framework. Students are learning how to take and process notes while evaluating content related to student agency, opportunity knowledge and rigor. 8th Grade AVID students are preparing for their first Socratic Seminar by applying what they know about note taking and layering notes over the topic of what it means to have purpose.

Band: Band students are learning their classroom procedures and routines this week! Last week all classes learned their warm up routine (without instruments), and this week we are working towards our first rehearsal with instruments. 8th graders are creating their own rhythm sight reading arrangements, and 6th/7th graders are learning about each instrument family before new musicians choose their instrument. It's a big decision, and students are very excited!

Orchestra: Students and families can look forward to an exciting week in orchestra! Students will be receiving their instruments and learning how to play their first few notes and scales. We’re excited to officially begin making music together!

Health: For this week’s curriculum, the grade-level highlights are as follows:

6th Grade: Students will focus on understanding the core principles of health and wellness.

7th Grade: Students will explore mental and emotional health and finalize their presentations regarding healthy habits and emotional well-being.

8th Grade: The curriculum will center on the study of medications and substance use education.

Vocal Music: This week Vocal Music (Choir) students can look forward to learning their first song, “Start With Hello.” This short tune encourages reaching out to people they might not know yet and making them feel at home. They’ll also be reviewing notes and rhythms from previous years in order to prepare them for more advanced music literacy.

6th Grade ELA will be diving right into the MyPerspective Curriculum-Unit 1--EQ (Essential Question):

"What are some of the challenges & triumphs of growing up?"

This is the overarching discussion question that ties the stories together with the writing for the unit.

In 7th grade, we have been starting the school year with lots of review and opportunities to build relationships. MAP testing began this week in Math and ELA and will take place on 8/31 and 9/2 in Science.

Students have been reviewing the RACES strategy in their ELA classes, strengthening foundational math skills, and learning how to use CERs (Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning) in Science. We have also been doing plenty of getting-to-know-you activities to build the culture and climate of our classrooms and 7th-grade team. We are off to a great start!

RACES is a strategy students use to help them write strong, well-organized responses:

• R – Restate the question.
• A – Answer the question.
• C – Cite evidence from the text.
• E – Explain how the evidence proves the answer.
• S – Summarize by restating the topic sentence in a different way.

Students are practicing using this strategy to make sure their written responses fully answer the question and are supported with strong evidence.

Today was the first day of the Rox Mid Athletic Scholar program. If your student participates in sports at Rox, you may be interested in this program. Please contact your student's coach, for additional information.

The program runs Monday - Friday from 3pm - 4pm in our school Media Center with Volleyball students meeting M & W, from 3pm - 4 pm

Football meets R & F - 3 - 4:30 pm

This program supports academic enrichment; ensuring students are caught up on their student as well as enrichment activities for students who have completed their work.

Future after-school opportunities, for all students are on the horizon, stay tuned!

We are excited to see all of our Rox Mid Families at Curriculum Night 2026!

• August 26th - 5:30pm - 7:30pm
• We will host a welcome at 5:30 in the auditorium, with break-out sessions to follow.
• The evening will inform families about the curriculum and instruction here at Rox, as well as serve as a night to meet our amazing team of teachers and staff!
• We will also have fun activities for families and students in our gymnasium.